Chapter Thirteen
Sam
I was staring at the door when Jackson approached me. “I thought she turned you down?” he said. “How’d you convince her to give you a shot?”
“I didn’t,” I replied. “She just happened to be here tonight. All I did was convince her to play a game of pool with me.”
“I don’t know, man,” Jackson said with raised eyebrows. “She looks like she could be into you.”
“You think so?” I asked hopefully.
“Hell, yeah. She’s over here with you instead of over there with her friends, right?”
Jackson’s observation gave me a spark of hope. I turned to him and noticed the woman at the bar staring over at us. She was blonde, dark eyed, and was close to being very drunk. “I think your friend is waiting for you,” I pointed out.
Jackson turned his face to her and favored her with a wink. “What do you think?” he asked, turning back to me.
“She’s certainly your type,” I nodded.
“Her name is Matilda,” Jackson replied. “Or maybe it was Marianne. I’m not quite sure.”
“Maybe you should get that straight before you go over there.”
“Please,” he said. “I doubt she’s the kind of girl who cares if you get her name wrong. She wants the same thing I want. And it’s not conversation.”
“Then why are you over here talking to me?”
Jackson smiled. “I was wondering if you could do me a solid.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’ve done you so many already…but okay. What is it?”
“Would you mind closing up the bar for me tonight?” Jackson asked. “I was supposed to do it, but...”
“Your lady awaits,” I finished for him.
“Precisely,” he nodded. “And I hate to keep a hard on waiting.”
I laughed. “Fine. Go ahead. I’ll handle things on this end.”
“You’re the best, man!” Jackson said emphatically.
“And, don’t you forget it,” I said.
The moment Jackson disappeared, I saw Mia come back into the bar. She put her phone away and walked towards me. She looked a little more relaxed as she gave me a warm smile.
“Everything alright at home?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yup,” she replied.
“Good.” I smiled.
“How about another game of pool?”
I wrinkled my brows and looked out towards the dance floor. “Actually, how about a little dancing?”
“Urgh,” she groaned.
“Come on,” I said, moving a little closer. “It’ll be fun.”
“I get so self conscious every time I dance.”
“I have the perfect remedy for that,” I said.
“Which is what?”
I smiled and pushed another drink into her hand. “Alcohol.”
Mia stared at the fresh drink and then laughed. “I’ve already drunk too much.”
“If you’re worried about being self-conscious on the dance floor, then you obviously haven’t had enough.”
“Good point,” she conceded as she took a big gulp from the glass. She shook her head as she set down it down, and I slipped my arm around her waist, steering her towards the dance floor.
“I don’t know about this,” Mia mumbled.
“Forget everything else,” I said. “Forget that we’re surrounded by people. Forget that we’re in a public place. Forget that you have a job and a mortgage and a car to repair. For right now…it’s just you and me.”
I saw her eyes widen a little as I spoke. It was almost as though she were internalizing my words and finding they were a comfort to her. I put my hands on her hips and pulled her closer to me. The warmth of her body made me a shiver a little, and I almost laughed at the contradiction.
Suddenly, I felt her loosen up against me. Her body moved more freely, her hips swung from side to side, and her face cleared of worry and thought.
She danced as if in slow motion at first, and then her body responded to the loud, rhythmic music we were surrounded by. We danced and drank, then we danced and drank some more.
The whole time, I felt as though Mia were shedding her skin and allowing the woman beneath the surface to make her entrance. It was the woman she had been before she’d been forced to grow up, before she’d become a lawyer and a mother.
As the night wore on, the bar emptied of people. Mia’s friends came over to say goodbye, and she bade them farewell as though she had never expected to go home with them. She stayed behind, and we danced until we were the only two people left in the bar.
“Oh God,” Mia said, looking around as though she’d only just realized that we were alone. “The bar’s empty.”
I smiled. “It’s just the two of us,” I nodded.
“We should go,” Mia said. “Before we’re kicked out.”
She swayed a little and I grabbed her and pulled her towards me. “We don’t need to,” I told her.
“Why?”
“Because my friend owns the bar, remember?” I reminded her. “Also, I’m part owner, which means we can stay for as long as we like.”
“You’re part owner?” she asked again.
“Yes.”
She raised her eyebrows. “A fireman and a bar owner,” she said. “Strange combination.”
“I’m more of a silent partner, really,” I smiled. “An investor, so to speak.”
“Ah.”
She pulled away from me a little and started dancing alone in the middle of bar, as though nobody was watching. She had really released her inhibitions, and I found it mesmerizing to watch her. I sat down on one of the bar stools and leant back so that I could enjoy the sight of her twirling around on her bare feet, her shoes kicked off long ago. She looked like some exotic mirage dancer, like a siren from a dream.
I sipped my beer and stared at her. She did a small pirouette and then turned to me with a smile on her face. It was obvious that she knew I was watching her, and it was even more obvious that she didn’t care. In fact, she appeared to like the fact that she had my undivided attention.
“I used to want to be a dancer when I was a little girl,” she told me.
“What kind?”
“A ballerina, of course,” Mia replied. “I took lessons for about a year.”
“What happened?”
“I didn’t have the discipline,” she replied with a shrug. “I was too tall, too clumsy, and far too easily distracted. I never stopped dreaming about being a dancer though. Even after I stopped my lessons.”
“I thought you said you felt self conscious dancing?”
“I do,” Mia smiled. “This kind of dancing is different. Ballet is…structured. There’s a specific way to move, to turn, to bend. There’s order in the movement, there are rules.”
“You like the rules?”
Mia smiled as she danced a little closer to me. “I think that’s the reason I turned to law in the end. I liked knowing that there was a set of rules in place and if you broke them, then there were consequences. It’s a simplistic way of looking at things, I know. But that’s what first drew me to law.”
She was moving slower now. The movements of her slow paced dance were becoming more sensual, more pronounced, and more inviting. It was like she was drawing me in, putting me under a spell.
I felt my body heat up. I wanted to approach her; I wanted to touch her. I wanted to put my mouth against her neck. I wanted to lick the sweetness between her legs. I wanted to feel her shudder underneath me.
And yet at the same time, I didn’t want to approach her for fear she might disappear before my eyes. She seemed like some otherworldly creature. She seemed like some fantasy my imagination had conjured up to test me somehow, to challenge me.
I had vowed to always be single and carefree, and it was like the universe was testing me by placing the perfect woman within arm’s reach.
I wanted to walk away because I knew that meant preserving my lifestyle. And in the same breath, I wanted to devour her whole. I wanted to lose myself in her and construct a new man instead, someone that deserved her.
“It’s the alcohol talking,” I whispered to myself.
“What?” Mia asked as her green eyes fell onto mine.
“Nothing,” I mumbled, setting down my beer.
“What does it feel like?” Mia asked, raising her arms and moving them from side to side. “To save people’s lives every day?”
My eyes followed the movement of her arms. I wanted to grab them both and pin them to the wall so that I could fuck her against it.
“It feels…like flying,” I replied.
She laughed. “I always wanted to fly. I always wished I would magically sprout wings one day and just…take off.”
I smiled at the look of far off wonderment on her face. “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” I said. I had meant to think it, but I heard the words come out of my mouth, and it felt as though I had never said anything truer.
She stopped moving. She stopped her dancing and stared at me for a long moment. This was what it felt like to be hypnotized. I could feel myself falling into her. No woman had ever approached me like that, with single-minded purpose, with unapologetic, raw desire.
When she approached me, I froze where I stood. And when she threw her arms around me and started kissing me, I could only grip the sides of the bar and pray this wasn’t a dream.